were ceremoniously veiled, and their inscribed pedestals left just as
they are. That is a scheme which occurred to me soon after I saw the
veiled Umberto. Mr. Birrell has now stepped in and forestalled my
advocacy. Pereant qui--but no, who could wish that charming man to
perish? The realisation of that scheme is what matters.

Let an inventory be taken of those statues. Let it be submitted to
Lord Rosebery, and he be asked to tick off all those statesmen, poets,
philosophers and other personages about whom he would wish to orate.
Then let the list be passed on to other orators, until every statue on
it shall have its particular spokesman. Then let the dates for the
various veilings be appointed. If there be four or five veilings every
week, I conceive that the whole list will be exhausted in two years or
so. And my enjoyment of the reported speeches will not be the less
keen because I can so well imagine them.... In conclusion, Lord
Rosebery said that the keynote to the character of the man in whose
honour they were gathered together to-day was, first and last,
integrity. (Applause.) He did not say of him that he had been
infallible. Which of us was infallible? (Laughter.) But this he would
say, that the great man whose statue they were looking on for the last
time had been actuated throughout his career by no motive but the
desire to do that, and that only, which would conduce to the honour
and to the stability of the country that gave him birth. Of him it
might truly be said, as had been said of another, `That which he had
to give, he gave.' (Loud and prolonged applause.) His Lordship then
pulled the cord, and the sheeting rolled up into position...

Not, however, because those speeches will so edify and soothe me, nor
merely because those veiled statues will make less uncouth the city I
was born in, do I feverishly thrust on you my proposition. The wish in